turns of ACT007 of Apolyton 2000 tournament

[korn469]

***UpNet Live Uplink***

We are here at the Univseristy Base Holo Briefing room awaiting the transmission from the first Sky Hydroponics Lab, Unifier. This orbital facility built by the aerospace firm Extalite Corp, and launched by UPAC will go begin transmission in 5 seconds

5...
4...
3...
2...
1...

Begin Transmission

Interesting, we are seeing what appears to be the Gaian continant. That rather large city must be Gaia's Landing. This is rather odd considering that this is a UoP orbital. Perhaps this is to show some sort of dominance. Wait a minute, the hologram turned white, it appears that we have a malfunction...wait the picture is coming back online, the Unifier is not malfunctioning...I cannot believe my eyes...

Oh my god, Gaian's Landing and another Gaian base have just been vaporized...i'm not sure if the Uplink is still functioning, but if it is showing true Gaia's Landing no longer exists. All that remains is a crater. Since this transmission is going out unencrypted across Planet this could a FUD campaign by the UI.

Wait, I have word that UPAC is about to deliever a statement...UpNet is switching over to that...

quote: Moments ago the University of Planet deployed the first SS-23 Satan ICBM against the Daughter's of Gaia. The primary target was the Gaian Headquaters and ruling Gaian Clerics at Gaia's Landing. Secondary targets included the Command Nexus, the Weather Paradigm, and the hated Empath Guild. Though we do not expect Lady Tau Ceti as a causualty, our hopes remain high that she had not evacuated Gaia's Landing. In addition the blast should have taken out a number of less important tertiary targets, including the main Gaian honor guard and much of the Gaian eastern garrison force. By now the Daughter's of Gaia are mourning their dead and looking with amazement at the crater that used to be their most vibrant city. Provost korn469 has vowed to grind the Gaians into dust which is now just a matter of time.

[This message has been edited by korn469 (edited April 14, 2000).]

[korn469]

***UpNet NewsBrief***

The UPAF is repairing and retooling various squadrons in anticipation of the final assault on the Gaian mainland. In other news word of work on an advanced algorithm codenamed kilo has leaked out. It will supposedly shore up UoP network security and is under development. No word of when it will be finished.

[Tau Ceti]

*** GaiaNet Note ***

A brief respite in the fighting has given the battered Gaian forces time to regroup. Bomb shelters are being constructed everywhere, fresh recruits are being trained, and Mind Worms are being bred. There is an aura of resignation, but also of grim determination in the air at all Gaian bases.

[korn469]

***UpNet NewsFlash***

In a stunning turn of events, drone riots at Library of Planet turned into a full scale revolt when members of the local garrison joined the drones. They set up a ruling tribunal and elected to join the Gaians. Though showing great idealism on their part, their actions were for naught...UPAF forced moved in and eradicated the garrison. Provost korn469 called it a minor delay and stated that the noose is still tightening around Lady Tau Ceti's neck. UPDM officials said forces loyal to the UoP are poised to quash the rebellion. Justice will be swift against the leaders of this uprising...they will be re-educated at the punishment sphere in Nadezjda-Hope, along with all of their collaborators.

Off the record sources said, there is a fear amongst the UPDM that the Gaians got the designs for a fusion powered supply crawler. This could mean that Gaian scientist could reverse engineer the fusion reactor. This could significantly upgrade Gaian fighting readiness. But all breathed a sigh of relief that the Hellstorm squadron based in Library of Planet had flown to Nadezjda-Hope to erradicate mindworms.

More bad news filtered in when hostile native species attack and destroyed a terraforming detachment near Cosmograd.

Though in better news, Chiron Heavy Industrial announced the discover of Organic Superlube, officials with the company said that this makes it possible to create laser powered by a fusion reaction. These Fusion Laser would be almost twice as powerful as the current guided missles used by the UPDM.

Rumors are that the kilo algorithm is nearing completion and will protect University datasystems from Gaian infiltrators.

[Tau Ceti]

*** GaiaNet Newsflash ***

Finally, even the citizens of the University themselves have decided to rise and fight the evil tyrant Provost korn469! We are very happy to see the rebellion at Library of Planet. Sadly, the base is too far away from the Gaian heartland for the main Gaian military to be able to lend any assistance, and reports indicate that the garrison is decimated. But these brave men did not die in vain; they managed to smuggle out the top secret designs for the University's fusion reactor. This advanced reactor has already been incorporated into some Gaian garrison units, with more to follow.

The outpost of The Pines had to be abandoned earlier this week, having proved completely indefensible. Gaian commanders were worried that it would only serve as a forward base for the University air force.

[Tau Ceti]

*** GaiaNet Transmission ***

Source: Mobile Transmitter GT-32. Uplink to main GaiaNet Node impossible - host is not responding.

Calling all Gaian survivors... This is Lady Tau Ceti speaking. This latest heinous act by the Provost fills us all with grief and dread. It is a sad day for all mankind - for the first time in more than 200 years, nuclear weapons have been employed. And again, the target was civilian. This finally proves that the Provost wants nothing less than the complete eradication of all Gaian citizens. Though our means of resistance are sadly weak, we must fight on - we owe it to those who have already died for our cause. Surrendering now would dishonor their memory and still not save our lives. Let every Gaians citizen who can, take up arms against the inhuman monster that is Provost korn469, and let us seek our destiny - still free.

[korn469]

*** UpNet Newsflash***

The rebellion at at Library of Planet was easily supressed and the traitors that organized the uprising have already been sent to the punishment sphere. Though the Gaians have learned how to build fusion reactors they are still in no position to surive this war unless they immeadiately lay down their arms and surrender. Provost korn469 announced an amnesty agreement for the Gaians. He would spare the Gaian leaders from the punishment sphere and forgive all of their crimes against the University if they decide to unconditionally surrender to our forces.

Drop troops seized another Gaian base and the bulk of the UPAF has set up a forward staging area their. The UPDM predicts that the Human Genome Project will fall to our forces in the coming weeks unless the Gaians destroy it first, but the days of effective Gaian resistance are behind us. Only mopping up operations are left.

In other news the kilo algorithm was unvielded today by the Provost himself. We learned today that Provost korn469 was project lead on the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm and that is why he has made few public appearances lately. Offically called the HSA, this program will completely protect our data network from any attack.

quote: That Mr. Anderson is the sound of inevitability. --Agent Smith "The Matrix"

[Tau Ceti]

*** GaiaNet Note ***

Crimes against the University? So now the definition of crime includes defending against unprovoked aggression and refusing to surrender unconditionally?

What a generous offer indeed. Does the Provost truly believe that the Gaian leadership would send their people into slavery for a slim chance of saving themselves? Then he should think again.

The Gaians are steeling themselves for the final battles. The Human Genome Project remains operational, in the hopes that when the Provost is one day toppled by a rebellion of his suppressed people, the data may be used for the good of humanity.

[korn469]

***UpNet NewsFlash***

Our forces have siezed the Human Genome project from the Gaians after meeting light resistance from the remains of their army. Lady Tau Ceti and a few devote follow have yet to lay down their arms but the UPDM confidantly predicts that by 2170 the whole of Chiron will be under UoP control. Anonymous officals with the UPDM stated that the end might come as soon as 2169 for the Gaians, it just depends on how many causualties the UPDM is will to take to speed up the conquests.

In other news UPAC is scheduled to launch another Extalite Corp orbital next year. UPAC also announced that a coallition of aerospace firms are on the verg of another significant breakthrough, and that more types of orbital improvements would soon be available for the benefit of the UoP.

[Tau Ceti]

*** GaiaNet Transmission ***

This footage was recorded today in the city now known as Gaia's Last Stand. As you can see, the streets are exceptionally quiet. The entire surviving Gaian populace, now less than 6000 in number, are either manning the perimeter or in bomb shelters. Earlier this week there were extensive riots, but they wore off as the people resigned themselves to their fate. Lady Tau Ceti herself has been on guard duty continuously for the last four days; she has neither slept nor eaten in that time. Where she gets her strength we can only wonder - she has not spoken a word since she went on duty. She is always just looking north. Is she merely looking for the University scout flights or is she trying to remember the beauty of the last remaining gardens? Who knows.

[korn469]

***UpNet Special Report***

VICTORY!

In one last desperate attempt to stop the inevetable Lady Tau Ceti led her troops into one last battle. Eventhough our troops had superior weapons, training, and more battle experiance than the Gaians, they still put up a valiant fight and inflicted heavy causulties on our forces. The UPDM rejected a proposal by UPAC to destroy the Gaian stronghold with a prolonged missle assualt, and with approval from Provost korn469 launched one final assualt.

Lady Tau Ceti took personal command of her forces and they responded to her leadership with a tenacious defense, in what turned out to be the largest and most hard fought battle on Chiron since planetfall. The entire UPAF took part in the massive air strikes against the Gaian base, and when our drop troops finally decended on the base, no Gaian defendered remained.

With this victory the entire Planet is now under University control. Provost korn469 has announced that the entire month is now a Planet-wide holiday and the UoP's massive energy surplus will be spent on pysch budget. Massive celebrations have errupted all across the globe.

end transmission

[korn469]

Tau Ceti and Pagan[CyC]

i would like to say good game...i loved the commentary best of all, and i think everybody played the game in character...

now i'd love to hear our comments on the game and the strategies you used, what you were going for ect.

Basically here is what i did...

• with my free tech i picked industrial economics because i wanted to run free market and i wanted to get wealth as soon as possible
• i wanted to sign Pacts with both of you to keep an eye on what you were up to and to get commerce from you since i would have a better commerce rating and my bases would be producing more energy per turn
• after industrial economics i went for secrets of the human brain and with the next free tech i picked planetary networks still on th way to indutrial automation
• i got lucky because by the time i had industrial automation i had found three alien artifacts...
• with those arifacts i manged to get the Planetary Transit System and then my population went through the roof
• after getting industrial automation and the PTS (which really increased my production, research, economy, and voting power) i got on a bee line for doctrine: air power...not really because i was thinking that the map was so small but because i know that air power is one of the keys to any game of SMAC
• i was building my bases close together and i didn't switch to democracy until i was finished seeding my island
• everything was going along as planned, then Pagan[CyC] attacked me a few turns before i was prepared to defend against him...however i did have probe teams and used them well
• it went back and forth until i discovered airpower and then started pounding Pagan[CyC] with needlejets
• shortly after i got airpower i got MMI, and then i knew that Pagan[CyC] was in big trouble
• at this point i know it was too early to see that the game was getting out of hand but a double team attack against me would have finished me, however Tau Ceti set back
• i used copters and drop troops to take Pagan out then i went on to build my economy and a punishment sphere once i got the tech
• during this time Tau Ceti was growing rapidly and had me worried, and i decided that as soon as Tau Ceti started researching Synthetic Fossil Fuels that i would attack him before he could get air power
• at the end of the war i demanded cash from Tau Ceti mainly as a means to justify a war and i was worried about Tau Ceti's big bank account...then with some threats the remains of the Spartans money went to me, at that point i knew the Gaians would have an uphill battle
• Once i got my punishment sphere i based all of my troops there and i had been going for fusion power as my next goal
• i positioned my troops within striking range of Tau Ceti's bases...with my infiltration because i was govenor i was very concered about the jungle bases...and general Gaian expansion
• once the war broke out i had a good infrastructure and i had lots of drop troops copters, needlejets, and drop probe teams
• things were going ok until Tau Ceti started using mindworms for base defense...if you had of though of this earlier you could have built biology labs in all of your bases and this would have helped out your strategy...the mindworms on defense was compounded by the fact that Tau Ceti had the Manifold, was the gaians, and i was running free market
• except in places where Tau Ceti had mind worms my troops which came out with high morale from the cyborg factory had an easy time with conventional gaian troops
• i don't know how you stole my technology because i thought i had your probe teams covered but in general i think the probe garrisons slowed down any probe threat you could muster
• also i don't know how you managed to land a mindworm army close to cosmograd but that was pretty good
• i didn't wanna oblitorate your bases but i didn't want you to probe me twice and get something good like fusion power or MMI
• if my base had of revolted earlier and you had of gotten a fusion powered copter then you might have had a chance later on but i got out to a goos start and both of you had trouble catching up

thats just a quick review...anything you wanna know? so what as your general run down of the game?
i'd love to hear both of your sides...

btw has anybody been reading our little story? personally i really enjoyed writing them

korn469

[Tau Ceti]

Well, congratulations, korn! A well executed campaign led to the conquest of the entire Gaian empire in 16 turns.

What went wrong? Well, I played against the University , but there were other things as well.

This game was one of the first to be set up, so I started playing without knowing the quirks of the map and scenario too well. And I have played nearly all my single player games on Transcend, so Librarian gave a few unpleasant surprises - it changes things far more than I thought.

My initial strategy was one that tends to work well for the Gaians on Transcend - use their superior efficiency to expand in all directions, preferably under Planned economics. I started closest to the Jungle, so I intended to get ships quickly and grab as much of it as I could, and then go into population boom and build up all my bases, most likely getting by far the greatest population, and through that gaining the lead. Strength through numbers.

The main flaw with this was that I seriously underestimated the University's research capability and the strength of Free Market economics on Librarian. This was of course compounded by the fact that korn got the PTS (and very early too), giving him the largest population by far. I simply had not set up for early game warfare, at least not offensively (being the Gaians, with -1 morale, I more expected to be the target of an attack, if anything). I did not even have Nonlinear Mathematics until korn gave it to me in 2125. About that time, the Spartans asked for my assistance, but I had absolutely nothing to offer. So it was not that I so much decided it would be best not to attack, it was a lack of capability. I had started building a strike force, but needing transports and impact rovers, I could have hit korn no sooner than 2135. Already around 2130, korn had jets in the air, and it was obvious that an attack would be futile. Choppers and drop troops followed around 2135, and once that happened, the Spartans were quickly defeated and the game was effectively over. According to my original game plan, we should still only have been in the starting phase.

I expected korn to attack me immediately afterwards, but for some reason which I still do not understand, he did not. (He had missile choppers against my Synthmetal Sentinels, and knew it!) Of course, I pretty much gave in to his cash demands, but since he could have taken me out in five turns at the time (or so I thought, anyway), I did not see that I had much choice. In the peaceful years afterwards, I felt it did not really matter what I did, so I just continued my original plan and colonised the entire jungle, while building up Plasma Sentinels and Mind Worms as defenders on my home island. Of course I wanted to get Air Power as quickly as possible, but that dream was crushed when I did not get to choose Fossil Fuels three times in a row. When I finally got it, korn started attacking my jungle colonies, who had only one defender each at best.

From then on it was only guerilla warfare, sneaking units around in the fungus in case some choppers landed nearby, and building Mind Worms (the only thing I had that was mildly capable of stopping Missile air units) as defenders. Again, it is not that I did not think about it, but Mind Worms are expensive at 50 minerals, therefore building them in the many size 1 and 2 bases would have taken too long. BioLabs are nice, but again, expensive, and only give +1 Lifecycle, which is not enough. They would still lose to Empath choppers, so I would prefer to have an extra worm rather than the lifecycle bonus. Anyway, I expected you to switch to Green economics when you got serious with the attacks. From my point of view, I was doomed anyway. It certainly looks like you perceived me as a much bigger threat to you than I did myself...

My campaign was not massively successful, but that could hardly be expected either. I killed two or three choppers and a needlejet; I only managed to steal one tech from the bases he captured, and that was Environmental Economics. Not that any tech could have saved me at that point, mind. Korn did manage to stop nearly all probe opportunities, but I think he overlooked the fact that one of my Probe Teams had become Elite when I switched to Fundy, giving it 3 moves. Thus I managed to sneak it into the large base on my west coast (I have forgotten its name) just after he had captured it, but before he obliterated it. That was the only time in the entire game that I managed to get a probe team into his bases. I still had infiltration because of the Empath Guild and the Governorship in the late game.

The Mind Worms near Cosmograd were all captured in the area by the Unity Rover I had out there scouting for pods. It is very easy to catch worms with +4 Planet... Getting a fusion chopper that late would not have been able to save me. I could at most have built two of my own in the time I had left; anyway, you cannot win a war with a smaller population, less production, less morale and only equal tech. So it would not have mattered.

With hindsight, what should I have done? Probably allied with Pagan[CyC] immediately and made a joint attack on the University early, but letting him do more than me, while still building up my bases back home. Then, with korn out of the picture, my superior population, tech and production should have been enough to wear down the Spartans.

But I enjoyed the game anyway. It was fun to see how long I could last... I would like to know why you did not attack me earlier. If there is anything else you want to know, just ask.

[korn469]

Tau Ceti

the reason i held off on attacking you was three fold.

1. you were being peaceful and not doing anything to threaten me, i was trying to be somewhat honorable (though without co-op victory on that is kind of hard)

2. i was building up my economy and my bases along with tyring to get fusion power so when i finally did attack you it would be with far superior troops and lots of them...so that i could rapidly overrun your base...i was also building supply crawlers from my HQ and a feeder base so i could hurry a planet buster and start the ivasion off with nuking your HQ off the map...this still happened but i happened later than i expected...also i wanted to become the first faction into space

3. the last point was i did not consider you an immeadiate threat that i had to attack...so i had a couple of triggers, once you started researching synthetic fossil fuels, once your population really started becoming a problem, or if you were about to get fusion around the same time as me...all of those were conditions that i had decided to launch an attack against you

basically i wanted to build up and get powerful so i could rapidly take you out of the game with massive local superiority and at the same time stop you from destroying all of my progress with probe teams

korn469

[korn469]

Tau Ceti

i do have a question for you...

did you think i played the character of the UoP well? i mean do you think the "real" UoP would behave in the same mannor that i played them?

i think you remained in character amazing well with the gaians...when you did oblitorate the Human Genome Project that completely suprised me...i thought you would destroy your last bases the same way Pagan[CyC] did and when you did not i was really impressed by you

also do you have any constructive critisism for me? was there anything that you saw me doing that you thought was foolish?

did you learn anything from the game?

also how are the other games going are there any factions just running away with it (UoP?)...

i do not have time to respond right now but i will be back later with more like what you taught me ect...

korn469